DOZENS of council staff have been disciplined and even sacked for spending hundreds of hours browsing the internet at work, the Sunday Sun can reveal.

At least six staff were sacked or resigned from North councils for a raft of online sins, including spending too long on Facebook and forwarding offensive joke emails.

And 38 more were slapped with other sanctions, including final written warnings. Some were even stripped of their internet access.

The sanctions, all imposed in the last two years, came to light in a series of Freedom of Information requests by the Sunday Sun.

In Stockton, a member of staff resigned last year, while seven more were hit with formal warnings and one was given an informal warning.

Five of the instances involved joke emails of an “inappropriate nature” – including banter about sex, age, religion and race. Some staff forwarded chain messages.

One of the employees was hit for “inappropriate use of Facebook”, while others were told off for sending personal emails or using the internet too much.

Bosses at Redcar and Cleveland dished out four formal warnings in 2010 and one in 2011.

The 2011 case involved heavy use of shopping websites, Facebook, Yahoo and a bank. The council said “the time spent browsing was deemed to be excessive by the high number of web pages accessed”.

Staff also ran into trouble in Sunderland, which dismissed one employee and issued four formal warnings last year, and Middlesbrough, which sacked two staff in 2010.

Gateshead sacked one staff member, fired off a written warning to another and stripped two staff of the right to use the internet, as well as giving them final writing warnings, since 2010.

Up to 10 members of staff were disciplined in North Yorkshire and two were given a formal warning in Durham. Northumberland council chiefs dished out two verbal warnings and confirmed one in writing.

Our probe also found heavy use of Facebook in some councils.

In Stockton, the site was accessed more than 7m times in 2011, while in Gateshead, it racked up 543,813 hits. But both councils said the vast majority of the hits came from its public libraries.

In North Yorkshire, 319 employees spent 896 hours on Facebook last year.

But Northumberland County Council bans the site entirely, saying “it is not deemed to be necessary or appropriate for them to carry out their duties”.

Emma Boon, campaign director for the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “These employees are meant to be working for taxpayers, not surfing Facebook.

“These are taxpayers’ resources and time being abused. Local authorities need to tighten up the rules to prevent this from happening.”

But a spokesman for Stockton Borough Council said: “Access to websites is controlled and restricted using filtering software.”

Coun Paul Watson, leader of Sunderland City Council, said: “During working hours, employee internet usage is only permitted for council business purposes.”

A Middlesbrough Council spokesman said: “To provide further guidance to staff on usage of the internet, a Social Networking policy will be introduced in April.”

Jeff Dean, head of human resources at Gateshead Council, said: “Council employees are not permitted to access Facebook or Twitter from their work computers other than for work purposes.”

Phil Jackman, Durham County Council’s head of ICT services, said: “The council uses software which blocks access to inappropriate websites and records any attempts by staff to access these sites.” And a Northumberland Council spokeswoman added: “Inappropriate sites are blocked by the firewall and any unusually high usage would be highlighted to the relevant head of service.”